


Dr. Shawlove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Simulation

by xeboot



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, final season spoilers, post-canon-ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-27 13:09:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16703248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xeboot/pseuds/xeboot
Summary: In which Shaw shoots things and is annoyed by the voice inside her head.





	Dr. Shawlove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Simulation

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this in 2016 a week after Root died. I forgot about it and just found this story so I guess I'll post it. Nothing's really edited but maybe I'll do it when I'm in the proper mood.

From where she sits perched on the top of a rooftop, peering through the scope of her sniper rifle, Shaw feels the base of her skull tingle. She rolls her eyes but nevertheless presses two fingers to the back of her left ear.

"What do you want?" she asks.

_Hey Shaw, can't a couple of electrical synapses traversing the great motherboard of life just talk?_

"Not now, Root. I'm busy."

_I’m always telling you that there’s no time like the present, Sameen. And there isn’t. The head chef of that steak joint we were going to visit tonight just came down with a bad case of salmonella. You really don't want to go there while the sous chef is on duty. And just between you and me, I'm betting that we'll have to pay them a visit in two days with the way the maître d'_ _been eyeing the candles._

"Couldn't this have waited? I'm in the middle of something," Shaw complains as she looks back through the scope of her rifle.

_You want to move a little more to your right, four o'clock._

"Root. I got this. Don't backseat aim."

_Fine. At that angle you're going to hit his liver and he'll bleed out before the ambulance arrives.  But what do I know? I'm just an omnipresent deity who can see everything and calculate virtually every scenario at the speed of light._

Shaw frowns, adjusts her shot, and pulls the trigger.

_Great job, sweetie. Now there's one coming up at eleven o'clock. Nine o'clock and in five seconds another one at four o'clock._

Three shots ring through the air. Each hit their mark.

_Are these cues working for you? I can do ascending and descending tonal cues too. I'll do anything for you, Shaw. I'll do anything to you too._

"Root," Shaw says, exasperated, though her lips quirk into an almost smile.

_Yes, Sameen?_

"Is the perimeter clear? How many people are inside and where is the Number?"

_Scale the fence and go through the back entrance. I'll disable the alarm and unlock the door for you. You have ten minutes before the patrol rounds the corner. There are twenty tangos left and the Number is in the central office of the plant._

"Only twenty? This is going to be a cakewalk," Shaw says confidently as she dissembles her weapon and packs it up.

_You should know by now that the cake's a lie, honey._

"But the steak isn't," Shaw huffs as she leaves the building and climbs the chain linked fence surrounding the automobile plant. Their latest Number was an engineer working on self-driving cars. Apparently Samaritan was after the code he had written. Root was able to direct the Number to the safest area inside the plant that the Samaritan agents had yet to breech.

_Like I said, you should pick another place unless you want a subpar steak. I wouldn't want you to eat anything that disagreed with you._

"Too late for that."

_Are you calling me subpar, Shaw? That's not what you said last night._

“That’s because I didn’t say anything to you after the stunt you pulled.”

_You really should take advantage of how everything is over WiFi these days. It’s the Internet of Things for a reason._

“If you send me another vibrator I will C4 your ass,” Shaw replies as she ducks behind the guard post.

_Mm, I always knew the chemistry between us was explosive. By the way, there is a guy in Japan working on an automated companion doll. I could always help nudge along his research. You have forty seconds left, Sameen._

Shaw grunts as she kicks the back door open. She leans against the wall and waits for the Samaritan agent. When he rounds the corner she elbows him in the face, flips him, and knocks him out.

_Not a fan of the idea? You know variety is the spice of life. There’s two guarding the door._

“Lose the weight first and then we’ll talk. Your transcendence did nothing for your figure.”

Shaw grins at Root’s affronted gasp before she breaks out into a run. She tackles the first agents that had his back turn to her and then shoots the other agent’s kneecap.

_I’m not fat! I just have big data._

“Right,” Shaw says before she opens fire on another two agents running towards her. She’s takes one out before another two round the corner. She ducks behind the heavy machinery.

_Keep going until you get to the paint shop. Run through the area and_ _then take a left to the freight elevator. I’ll slow them down by using my big data._

Shaw rolls her eyes as she runs. As she exits the paint shop she hears and explosion and sees the three agents that were locked in the area covered in metallic black paint.

_See, what did I say? Now get to the elevator and hurry, there’s more on the way._

As Shaw dashes towards the elevator, the doors open for her.

_Jump._

She jumps and lands on the roof of the elevator car that was just traveling up. It stops at the second floor and she feels the elevator shift with the weight of its new passengers.

_We need to get the Number out fast, Sameen. Samaritan is calling for more reinforcements. I’m going to lock these three in here. Get off on the next floor and climb up the closest ladder. I’ll give you a boost from there._

The elevator stops just before the third floor. Shaw can hear the confused voices of the Samaritan agents as they stomp around looking for an exit only to find them sealed. When Shaw looks up, she sees that the elevator door has opened. She jumps and pulls herself up to the third floor. She then sneaks her way through the assembly line before she spots the ladder Root mentioned. She climbs it and, just before she can reach the top, a bullet barely misses her head. Another bullet breezes by her right leg. Shaw whips out her gun. When she turns around, however, she sees that Root has already taken care of three agents. One had been grabbed by a giant robotic claw, and two had been knocked out by nearby six-axis robots.

_Don’t you just love the Internet of Things? Cloud computing is the gift that keeps on giving._

“Cutting it a little close there, Root.”

_Relax. You were always safe from trajectory of the bullet. It was never going to hit you. You know the only one who’s allowed to hurt you is me, Shaw._

“Promises, promises. Now where’s my ride?” Shaw deadpans. From the plant floor one of the welding robots that was installed into the wall moves up and waves at her. As it does, she spots another agent enter her line of sight. She fires two shots. The first grazes the agent’s left knee, the other hits her right and causes the lackey to collapse onto the floor.

_Is your wrist still bothering you? Your first shot was a wider than your normal variance. That injury should have finished healing three days ago._

“It’s fine. Stop worrying,” Shaw says as she grabs a hold of the robot.  It lifts her and brings her towards the air duct at the center of the room. She raises an eyebrow. “Really? The vents? Isn’t that a little cliché?”

_You should be able to pull the grate off easily. I had the custodian clean the ducts last week and had the robots get shifted so they could loosen the bolts. And what can I say, I’m a fan of the classics. I enjoy the sight of humans on their knees. Especially you, Shaw._

“Whatever, nerd.”

_I think you protest too much, Sameen._

“I’m not the one who’s merged with an artificial super intelligence,” Shaw says as she stands on top of the robotic arm, pulls the grate open, and lifts herself into the vent. She finds that the air duct was pristinely clean as Root predicted. “I knew you were all for embracing our AI overwhats, but really, Root?”

_“I always knew I was going to transcend this reality one way or another, Sameen. Besides, you’re the one that’s dating an ASI overwhat.”_

“You didn’t leave me much of a choice there.”

_Aw, I love you too. Now keep going until you can turn right. You’re not going to be able to make it to the Number from the vent. The ones in the offices are too small even for you. You’re going to have to enter from the plant floor._

When she gets to the vent in question, Shaw peers down and sees that Samaritan had been able to break open the office doors. An agent is standing guard, protecting the entrance.

“I don’t have a clear shot or exit.”

_Leave it to me._

Shaw hears a surprised shout as the plant’s fire sprinkler system turns on and douses the agent. Just as quickly as it turned out, it was turned off, causing the agent to move from his spot and directly into Shaw’s sight.

From her spot in the vent, Shaw lifts the grate and jumps down. She lands on top of the agent and knocks him out with a well place punch. Just as she is about to enter the office, the sprinklers turn on again for just long enough the spray Shaw.

“Root,” she scowls.

_Looks like I still got what it takes to get you wet for me._

“Seriously?”

_You needed to cool off. And it’s your own fault for leaving me hanging last night, Sam. Also 11 o’clock. 4 o’clock._

Shaw shoots twice and two more bodies fall to the ground.

_So about that sex—I mean companion—bot._

“No.”

_Aren’t you the least bit curious? We finally have the technology to find out if androids dream of electric sheep._

“No.”

_Where’s your sense of romance, Sameen?_

Shaw ignores Root’s plea as she kicks another unexpected agent and then drives her knee to his solar plexus.

_Where is your sense of adventure? Let’s knock out all the artificial intelligence and science fiction fantasies mankind ever had. I’ve already categorized and compiled all of them and made twenty back-ups just in case. If we ever hope to get through all of them we need to start now._

Shaw puts a bullet into the agent’s kneecap for good measure. She shoots the agent’s other kneecap in frustration. She then reloads her weapon, relishing the sound.

_We need to talk about this, darlin’. I feel like we’re on different planes of existence. We don’t connect the way we used to. I feel like we’re drifting farther and farther away._

“And whose fault was it that you went and died the week after I got back?”

_I think we should talk to someone about this. We need an intervention or couple’s therapy. What do you think, Fusco?_

“Oh no, Coco Puffs 2.0. There’s no way your bringing me into this conversation.”

_Big lug? Reese? Can you hear me?_

“No.”

_Finch? Father? Harry?_

“I don’t seem to recall or have any memory of this conversation.”

_Bear?_

Shaw smiles to herself when she hears Bear barking happily in her head. As she gets deeper into the office she encounters a locked door with a keypad.

_The password is 51413._

“You say the sweetest things sometimes, Root.”

_Of course the numbers do it for you. Hey Shaw, this reminds me of a song. I can read it in binary too if you want. It goes like:_

_Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,_

_Nor the furious winter’s rages._

Shaw ignores the Root Machine’s buzzing in her ear as she carefully approaches the final boundary between her and the number. She studies layout and counts the agents.

“Wait, why are there five? I thought you said there was twenty,” Shaw asks as she ducks behind the nearest cubicle.

_Did I? I must have miscounted. Not like it matters. You did say this was too easy. So appreciate the challenge._

“You’re having way too much fun with this,” Shaw mutters.

_Of course I am. Just_ _because I can perform 10 27 operations per second doesn’t mean I can’t slow down and enjoy the finer things in life. Aren’t you having fun?_

“Yeah, yeah. Now go make me a distraction.”

_Thought you’d never ask._

All at once all the monitors and television screens in the office simultaneously flicker before turning on. Shaw goes slack when as she sees Root appear on the screen, her brown hair shining in brilliant waves, and her lips quirked into her trademark crooked smirk. She’s exactly how Shaw remembered, right down to the way her eyes gleamed with her mischievous superiority which was only enhance by way she looked down the slope of her nose. Shaw’s eyes widen and she unconsciously leans closer to the nearest screen.

_Everyone who can hear me, this is the first and your last chance to drop your weapons. If you do not I’m going to introduce to you my best gal pal and girlfriend, Sameen Shaw. She has an Axis II Personality disorder but that doesn’t stop her from loving me and proving that our relationship can overcome all time and space.  You have five seconds before she busts your kneecaps. Five…Four…_

And just like that the moment was over. Shaw sighs and then readies herself. When Root’s countdown ends, the agents turn and fire at the door Root opened on the other side of the room. This left their backs turned to where Shaw was hiding.

_Hear that, Shaw? They’re playing our song._

“Yeah, and here comes the main theme,” Shaw says before she peeks out from the cubicle and opens fire. She immediately downs two of the agents before they can register what happened. She ducks under another cubicle as the glass wall shatters in front of her and reloads her weapon.  When the third agent runs past her, she shoots his knees and then grabs him before he can fall down. She uses his body as a meat shield as she advances, firing shots at the fourth agent as she moves towards the fifth.  She shoves the body into the fifth agent and then shoots him as well.

“We clear?” Shaw asks with a pleased grin, adjusting the lapels of her leather jacket.

_Clear. I’m releasing the Number._

“Oh thank God you’re here,” the engineer gushes as he runs up to Shaw and grabs both her hands.

_You’re welcome_.

Shaw pushes the Number away before she look to the nearest monitor to see Root still smirking.

_What? There is a God and you should know she loves you very dearly, Sameen._

“What’s going on?” the engineer asks, confused.

“Ignore her. Come on; let’s get you out of here. Where’s the closest exist?”

“Where are you trying to go?”

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Shaw says, her eyes never leaving the closest monitor to her.

_Take the fire escape. When you leave the office, take left until you see it. The boys just landed on the rooftop. We have another five minutes before the reinforcements show up._

“Fine,” Shaw says as she grabs the engineer’s arm, dragging him alongside her. “Let’s go.”

Even as she leaves, Shaw can help looking back at the images of Root before they flicker and go dark.

They make it to the rooftop of the plant and, just as Root said, Shaw spots the helicopter. Reese and Finch are in the front and Fusco is in the back. She shoves the engineer into a seat next to Fusco before sitting down herself.

“Let’s go,” she urges. “We have air support?”

_I have commandeered a few drones from here and there, mostly from the Air Force. And a couple missiles just to be safe. The skies are all yours. Just like the rest of the world._

“What are you waiting for, Reese? Let’s go,” Shaw says. Reese turns back and gives Shaw one of his usual taciturn smiles. The helicopters blades spin and they take off.

Shaw watches as the buildings get smaller and smaller in the distance. The acres beneath them become more indistinct until they look like amorphous pixels. When she turns, she studies the profile of Finch, Reese, and Fusco and how they are framed in the brightness of the sky and the whiteness of the clouds. And though she sat close to them, they’ve never seemed so far from her. She blinks and looks away.

“Root?”

_What is it?_

“I’ve been thinking about what you said a while ago. About how we’re all shapes and maybe how we’re all in a simulation.”

_And?_

“And…” Shaw begins before faltering.  If that’s the case, she almost says, than what’s the point of all of this? Any of this? What the point of saving lives if death is meaningless and life can just be rebooted?

The words themselves freeze in the back her mind before she could articulate them. Perhaps they will always stay there like a nagging doubt. Shaw then thinks back on everything they have accomplished, everything they have ever done. A smile tugs on her lips and she touches the back of her ear.

“And thanks. I don’t think I ever said that to you.”

_Thanks for playing, Sameen._


End file.
